Although this theory is doubtless in greater consonance with certain general characteristics of myth development than is the ancestor theory, we would urge, as one chief objection, the fact that its god-concept unites mythological-religious elements of a very different nature. In particular, the so-called 'god of a moment' is neither a god, in the proper sense of the word, nor even a demon, but either a particular impression arousing fear, or, on a higher plane, a single manifestation of the activity of a demon or god. The Greeks referred the flash of lightning to Zeus, the lightning-hurler. On a more primitive level, the North American Indian sees in the lightning and thunder the acts of a demon hidden in the clouds. In neither case are the momentary phenomena identified with gods or demons themselves. There is not a shadow of proof in the entire history of myth that such acts or attributes as these, which were attributed to gods and demons, ever existed as independent realities of even but a moment's duration. The so-called 'particular gods,' on the other hand, are in every respect demons and not gods. They are not personal in nature; this also implies that they are not conceived as having a particular form, for somehow the latter always leads to personalization. As a matter of fact, these 'particular gods' are only objectified emotions of fear and terror. Spirits, in the sense of magical agents of disease conceived as invisible beings, or occasionally imaged in the form of fantastic though ever-changing animal shapes, are not gods, but demons. The same holds true of the multitude of nature demons that infest field and forest and the vicinity of streams and gorges. Wherever myth has given these spirits definite forms, they reveal no evidence of traits such as would constitute them individual personalities. This, of course, does not imply that there are no cases at all in which the indeterminate traits ascribed to them are so combined as to result in individual beings. When this occurs, however, we have already transcended the stage of so-called 'particular gods.' Such beings as the Greek Pan or the Germanic Hel must already be classed with gods proper, even though they exhibit traits indicative of a demoniacal past; for the narrowness of character which they manifest results from the fact that they originated directly in a particular emotion. Surely, therefore, the decisive emphasis in the case of deity ideas in general must be placed on the attribute of personality. Gods are personal beings, whose characters reflect the peculiarity of the people who have created them. We see in the god Jahve of the Israelites the clear-cut lines of the stern god who threatens the disobedient, but who also rewards the faithful. More impressive still is the uniqueness of personality in those cases in which a multiplicity of gods causes the development of diverse and partly opposed characteristics in the various gods. How individual are the gods of the Greeks with respect to one another! Under the influence of poetry every god has here become a clearly defined personality, whose individuality was fixed by formative art. Thus, the error of the demon theory or, as it might also be called, the three-stage theory, lies in the fact that it effaces the essential distinctions between god and demon, retaining as the chief characteristic of the multitude of resulting deity-conceptions only the most external quality, that of _permanence_. For the 'god of a moment' is characterized merely by his extreme transitoriness; the 'particular god' is the 'god of a moment' become somewhat more enduring but not yet possessed of sufficient stability to develop personal traits; the true or personal god, finally, owes his distinctive attribute solely to the permanence of his characteristics. Because of this confusion of the concepts god and demon, there is lacking precisely that which is of most importance for a psychological investigation--namely, an answer to the question as to the _intrinsic_ marks that differentiate a god, in the proper and only true sense of the word, from demons, ancestors, and souls--in short, from all other creations of mythological thought.